‘Game of Thrones’ Spinoffs in the Works at HBO

HBO has closed deals with four different writers to explore multiple possible spinoffs of “Game of Thrones.”

The premium cable channel says that there is no timeline for development of the projects. “We’ll take as much or as little time as the writers need and, as with all our development, we will evaluate what we have when the scripts are in,” a spokesperson said.

The four writers are Max Borenstein (“Kong: Skull Island”), Jane Goldman (“Kingsman: The Golden Circle”), Brian Helgeland (“Legend”), and Carly Wray (“Mad Men,” “The Leftovers”). Goldman and Wray will each be working individually with novelist and “Game of Thrones” creator George R. R. Martin.

“Game of Thrones” executive producers and showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff will be attached to the four projects, as will Martin, but will not write on any of them.

A spinoff to “Game of Thrones” — the most watched series in HBO history — has been a source of speculation for years. In recent months, HBO executive began to privately acknowledge that the network was searching for writers to develop ideas based on the series and Martin’s best-selling fantasy novels from which it is adapted.

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Asked about a possible spinoff last year at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, HBO programming president Casey Bloys said, “We’ve talked about it. It’s something I’m not opposed to. But, of course, it has to make sense creatively. I am not sure that the guys [Weiss and Benioff] can really wrap their heads around it when they’re just about to start production. It’s a pretty intense production. They’re about to start production soon, but I’m open to it. The guys weren’t opposed to it, but there is no concrete plans, or anything like that at this point.”

Season 7 of “Game of Thrones” is set to premiere July 16. Production on the show pushed the premiere of the new season past its usual April start date, in order to capture the weather the producers wanted. The new season will consist of seven episodes. The eighth and final season, which Weiss and Benioff have already begun writing, will be between six and eight episodes.

The Season 6 finale of “Game of Thrones” drew a series-high 8.9 million viewers in overnight numbers —an especially high number given premium HBO’s much smaller viewer base than broadcast and basic-cable nets. Season 6 averaged 23.3 million multiplatform viewers, according to the service.

So many potential ideas: Dance of the Dragons, Aegon’s Conquest, the Blackfyre Rebellions, Robert’s Rebellion, etc. I would die for a Dance of the Dragons prequel, what with all the interesting characters and goddamn dragons but see it as unlikely due to how much it would cost to have so many dragons. Maybe a Dunk and Egg show?

That would be Rin’s point. CGI is more expensive than all but the highest paid actors. To fill a scene with a few hundred extras dressed as unsullied is a far easier and cheaper task than rendering ten dragons. That would require dozens, possibly hundreds of CGI artists and a lot of man hours. The more you populate a scene with that sort of CGI, the more expensive it becomes as shadows and light have to be adapted for any scenery or surrounding actors/extras.

I don’t think they will be spinoffs in the traditional sense, because I think Season 8 will have closure for all the characters so it won’t be Arya or Sansa or Jon Snow spinoff – however, they could certainly do Robert’s Rebellion for four or five seasons, or the beginnings of Westeros, White Walkers, The Wall, etc. In that sense, spinoffs would work.

They have specifically said already that it will not be a part of the current show/run. They are exploring different points in history. They said Roberts Rebellion is a possibility but less likely due to how close to the current timeline it is. I’m guessing they are looking at a century before or more.

HBO added that the creators and showrunners of the main series, D. B. Weiss and David Benioff, are continuing to work on finishing the upcoming seventh season of “Game of Thrones” and are “in the midst of writing and preparing for the eighth and final season” but would be attached, along with Martin, as executive producers.